Management of International Social Challenges

Growing up in a remote Swiss village, global challenges once felt distant. One of the great excitements of my childhood was the one-hour drive with my girlfriends to the nearest town. Compared to this little adventure, the world's great crises felt impossibly farfetched. As I grew older and moved places, I learned more about international affairs and came to understand how privileged the distance I grew up with really was. In a world where political violence, environmental crises, and human rights violations happen far too often, indifference itself becomes a privilege. Understanding this has motivated me to explore how the global system is constituted, and where it fails to protect those who need it most. Even though I have since moved beyond the narrow-minded reality of my childhood, there was still so much more to understand. This ultimately led me to pursue my undergraduate studies in Management of International Social Challenges (MISOC) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Now, three years later and just moments before graduation, I am still as enthusiastic about my Bachelor’s choice. MISOC struck me as a program that opened doors to many disciplines. The course subjects range from political science to sociology, international law, organisation and management, research methods, and many more interesting courses. On one hand this diversity of subjects allowed me to adopt a broad skill set, which I perceive as vital. It allowed me to apply for a great variety of master's and to have a comprehensive knowledge base. On the other hand, it gave me the necessary space to figure out which academic and professional direction I want to pursue in my future. Central to this development was MISOC's in-depth focus though research papers. Although the papers happened within a course subject, the exact case or focus was always up to the students. Due to this, every assignment was a chance to try out a topic, sharpen an argument, and discover what truly captured one's curiosity. It was ultimately mostly the research papers that helped me to gradually figure out my academic direction for my master's.

Another central feature of MISOC is the space it makes for an exchange and opportunities beyond the bachelor's program itself. I went on exchange to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), which was an experience of a lifetime that I still look back on with nostalgia. Moreover, I also took the initiative to graduate with an additional minor, alongside additional certificates that the university offers. In that sense, MISOC is not only for those curious about international affairs and its management, but also for those eager to make the most of everything the university has to offer.

Looking back, I can trace a clear line from that early realization about privilege and indifference to where I am heading for my postgraduate studies. A core lesson I take from MISOC is how it taught me analytical and critical thinking. Rather than reaching for simple solutions, it trained me to automatically think in connections and to understand how problems emerged in the first place, who is really responsible, and how to arrive at sustainable solutions. It also trained me to continuously question the status quo, and speak up where injustice happens. These are exactly the foundations I want to build on as I pursue a Master's in International and Development Studies, with a focus on human rights and humanitarianism, at the Geneva Graduate Institute. 

I am convinced that every informed, deliberate action matters, whether it is advocating for women's rights, explaining global conflicts to friends at the dinner table, or making sustainable choices in daily life. MISOC deepened this conviction and gave me the tools to build on it. If you feel the same, I promise you will find your path within MISOC.